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It happened less often now that Spectre and Samson were working through their differences. Now that Spectre didn't fear being found by Samson and carried back to Glasgow to be punished for his way of life, didn't fear waking up in that same room, in that same bed...he didn't have regular nightmares of that very occurrence taking place. The odd one did slip through, however, distressing the angel if only in his sleep.
Spectre had been forced to fast for days. Ever since he had been brought back here to Glasgow. No...not Spectre. Adrian. Adrian was what his father called him, refusing to accept his chosen moniker. It was always Adrian this, and Adrian that; his birth name passing his father's lips, muttered like a curse word. And what followed wasn't usually much better. And here his father was, in front of him, glowering.
'Adrian, you need to learn respect.'
Adrian always needed to learn something. Learning made Adrian tired and it didn't help that he was already so hungry. He knew Samson made him fast to keep him weak...keep his body vulnerable. It made it easier to convince him that the things he was being forced to see were real. He was nearly to the point where he would call them real anyway for a bite of food.
He had followed his father to Samson's study because he had no other choice. Adrian never had a choice. Samson had knelt him down and tied him up between the posts that stood in the middle of the room. Usually this meant a whipping, but Samson had left Adrian's shirt on. That was not standard whipping procedure. Therein lay small relief.
'If you continue on your path of sin, Adrian, you will feel your life start to fade away.'
His father was pacing back and forth in front of him and Adrian felt so small and weak, kneeling near the much larger man. Samson wasn't usually physically violent. Not unless you counted the whippings. That didn't mean Adrian was any less pleased having no way to escape when the man was on a tirade.
"I don't believe it is sin, Father," Adrian said, sounding like a broken record. He had never had this much gall as a child. As a child he had tried to please Samson, but now he knew...he knew it would never be enough. Samson had come and taken him from his happy life and brought him back here and nothing...nothing would ever be good enough to satisfy the man. Nothing could really end his suffering. He might as well say what he felt.
‘You are in the path to Hell, whether you believe so or not.’
Adrian leaned against the chains, now serving to keep his exhausted and overtaxed body upright as much as they were to restrain him. Here, in this father’s study, he could almost believe that he had never escaped this torment. That 'Spectre' had never existed. He had always been Adrian, and ‘Spectre’ was just a ghost. A phantom. A fantasy, created to protect Adrians’s poor, desperate mind. If that happiness, so hard won, had never existed, then perhaps he wasn’t on the path to Hell. Perhaps he was there already.
‘I will teach you, Son. Open your mind.’
And before Adrian could say a word, his eyes unfocused for a split second, and then he was standing in the middle of a desert, surrounded by nothing but more of it. For miles and miles. Adrian wasn’t sure what he was supposed to learn here, but he didn’t want to stand in one place. He had no shoes and the sand burned the soles of his feet.
Adrian started forward, but the hot sand only grew hotter and soon he was whimpering with every step and trying his hardest to touch as little of the sand as possible with his feet. There was no relief and no place to run to. The pain grew with every step, setting his nerves aflame. Adrian spread his wings and took to the air, his eyes streaming with tears from the pain. The sun beat down on his wings and his feathers quickly grew heavy with sweat. Hot sun, hot air, hot sand, nowhere to go… Adrian’s strength was failing him. His throat burned with thirst and fatigue threatened to claim him. Hunger curled like a snake in his belly, desperate for attention, and angry that none was forthcoming. He couldn’t go on. He would fall to the sand, and burn there. Was there really a lesson to be learned in this? Adrian did the only thing he could think to do.
“Father, please! Help me.”
The desert fell away, replaced by Adrian’s father’s study. Adrian leaned backwards, a loud groan escaping his lips as the coolness of the study granted him relief. He was exhausted and starving and he missed Thomas and his family so much. If they even existed… He was beginning to doubt it. Surely he could not take much more.
‘You have asked for my help, son. You have done well. You see that you need me. Respect should follow.’
Adrian didn’t shout that if Samson hadn’t subjected him to the vision in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed Samson’s help. He didn't shou tthat he had needed Samson to be his father his entire childhood, but Samson was never a father. Only a tyrant. He didn’t argue because it would amount to nothing and he was slipping as it was. He let out a tiny cry of submission and then, in line with that his father had said, he asked, “Father, please. May I have something to eat, and some water?”
It wasn’t begging. Samson did not tolerate begging. Adrian had learned at a young age, that begging was not permitted, and only meant further punishment. He had learned the hard way. Adrian had made sure it sounded like a request, and then he added, “I need you to help me.” At this point, he didn’t care that he was lowering himself to Samson’s level. He didn’t care. He wanted to fill his empty and complaining belly and to quench his rabid thirst more than anything in the world.
‘You may break your fast. I am satisfied you have learned.’
Samson left the room and he didn’t untie Adrian, and for several moments, Adrian thought his father had lied to him. He let out a distressed wail, but then Samson returned, carrying a bowl of soup and a glass of water. First he held the glass to Adrian’s lips and Adrian drank with gusto, despite the fact that he was still restrained and thus, some of the water spilled down his chin and pooled in front of his knees.
‘Perhaps now you will learn some manners.’
Samson was standing in front of Adrian, holding a bowl of steaming soup. Adrian’s mouth started to water and his stomach twisted in hunger. Samson was saying something, but Adrian didn’t hear. His eyes remained fixed on the bowl in front of him, taunting him. So close, but Adrian couldn’t move. Adrian felt ready to burst into tears at the proximity of the food being kept from him when Samson finally offered him a spoonful.
Adrian accepted the spoonful hastily, the taste of it exploding in his mouth. It was delicious and amazing and he very nearly lost control of his tears again. Quickly, he swallowed, eager for more.
‘Greed is a sin, Adrian. As is gluttony.’
Adrian felt the soup evaporate in his throat, gone before it hit his desperate and aching belly. “Father!” Samson fed him another bite, and that one evaporated too. Then another and another. “Father, please!” he cried, begging now because it was torture, pure and simple. His stomach hurt and with each evaporating bite, his hunger grew, the snake now furious, gnashing away inside him, ripping his insides to shreds. His stomach contracted, hardening into a shriveled fist, which pounded painfully inside him. Adrian lost control, weeping even as he continued to take what his father offered in the hope that one bite might make it through. None did. Maybe he would have to feel this way forever. As Adrian. Condemned to suffer-
“NO!” Spectre thrashed in his bed, ripping himself from his horrible dream. He sat up, cold and yet sweaty, his hair clinging to his neck. Tears in his eyes. “Oh, goodness,” he hissed, fighting to catch his breath. Just a dream. It was just a dream and he was not back in Glasgow, suffering the whims of his religious fanatic father. His heart felt like it was trying to escape from his chest as it pounded away inside him, but Spectre took several deep breaths to calm himself. Everything was okay. It was just a dream. Spectre reached up, sniffed, and wiped away his tears.
As wakefulness returned, Spectre felt that he was not alone in his bed. And his cohabitant was not large and room-temperature like his husband was. The shape beside him was small and warm, and he felt like angel. James must have joined him at some point, even though Spectre had tucked the boy into his own bed hours ago. “James?” Spectre asked softly. His husband’s son hadn’t said a word, but Spectre was fairly sure James was not still asleep. Spectre had been thrashing pretty wildly, and James wasn’t that heavy a sleeper.
“Daddy?” James rolled over then, now that he was sure it was okay. He smiled sleepily at Spectre and he reached up to touch Spectre’s sweaty, tear-stained face. “You were crying in your sleep. Are you sad, Daddy?”
Spectre smiled right back, entirely enchanted by the boy, as he always was. His heart swelled with love for James, easily replacing the horror of the nightmare. He breathed out slowly before answering, “no. I’m not sad.”
“Then why did you cry? What were you dreaming?”
James looked up at Spectre, his gorgeous brown eyes, so like Spectre's husband’s, filled with concern for Spectre’s well-being. How did one explain to a little boy that life was hard sometimes. That people made terrible mistakes and sometimes the people that suffered weren’t the ones who deserved it. Spectre had been a child when he had endured the torment Samson had heaped on him, even if Samson had seemed to turn over a new leaf now. Spectre was determined that James would never know that kind of fear. That he would never be afraid of who he was, and he would never be made to suffer for it.
“I was dreaming of sad things,” Spectre admitted, because though James was only three, he was incredibly bright and clued-in for his age and he would know if Spectre lied. He had no intention of doing so. “But it’s not for you to worry about. I’m just fine.”
A quick check of the clock in the corner declared the time to be 5:35 in the morning. James usually rose at 6:30, awakening the household with him. Spectre reached out to pull James into a hug, and he smiled as James jumped to hug him back. There was nothing like his children. Nothing at all in the world. “I love you, James.”
“I love you too, Daddy!”
“I’m feeling a bit hungry. How about we wake up early and I make us some pancakes? Would you like that?” Spectre would like that. Having the freedom to wake up and prepare food whenever he wanted to was one of his greatest reliefs and doing so often was one of the things he did to remind himself he was okay.
James jumped up on the bed, his arms raised in the air. “Yay, PANCAKES!”
Spectre laughed as the boy cheered pancakes with the enthusiasm most people might greet winning the lottery. Then again, when he was a child, he probably would have cheered for pancakes too, for very different reasons. “Up we go then, Angel!” Spectre stood and he held his arms out. James jumped over to the edge of the bed and then he vaulted himself into Spectre’s arms. “Oof! My goodness, you’re getting so big. Do stop that growing immediately,” Spectre joked as he carried the boy out of his room and down to the kitchen.
“No!” James said, feigning indignation.
“No? You don’t want to be a cute, little boy forever?”
“No! I was to be a big boy like you and Daddy!”
Spectre chuckled and he seated James at the table in the kitchen before he moved to retrieve his pancake-making materials. “Your daddy certainly is a big boy,” Spectre laughed. Thomas was still so child-like in all the best ways. Spectre loved him for it. “I think I’m just medium-sized,” Spectre joked. He really was quite tiny, but stunted growth was just one of the many lovely things he had inherited from his time with Samson Mors. By the time he received enough nutrition to grow normally, he was done growing. So he would remain forever small. He was glad to see that Mara wasn’t resigned to quite the same fate. She had shot up six inches in the first year she had lived with them as her starved body reveled and bloomed in a proper diet.
“Bigger than me!” James said happily.
“You’re very right,” Spectre said, mixing up the ingredients as James watched him. “And what do you want to be when you’re a big boy like daddy and me?”
“Uhm…” James rubbed his chin, clearly giving the question Very Serious Thought. “A dinosaur!” he laughed. “No…because they’re all dead now and I don’t want to be dead.”
“Yes…I would prefer that you not grow up to be dead!” Spectre said with a smile. Though Thomas was dead and Spectre loved him so much.
“I want to be one of those guys who digs them up!”
“An archaeologist?” Spectre asked, and he was rewarded with mad nodding instead of the blank looks most 3-year-olds would have given him. “James?” Spectre put down the whisk and he looked his son right in the eye. “You can be whatever you want to be. And your Daddy and your Mummy and I will always be proud of you.”
“I know,” James said, smiling. “Was your dream about grandpa?” Spectre, who had been quite sure James didn’t know much, if anything about that, felt his jaw drop open, and even then he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “Mara was talking about her real daddy and she said he was mean to you. And you said ‘please father’ in your sleep when you cried. Did he tell you you couldn’t be a rock star in your dream?”
James really was extraordinary. To put all that together was no mean feat for a child. The first part, perhaps, but to connect it to what he had said about being whatever James wanted to be… “He said I shouldn’t be a lot of things, James. But he was wrong. He knows that now. And we will never tell you who or what to be.”
“Can I be…a fish?” James said with a mischievous grin.
“I don’t know if fish is a wise career choice, James. You’ll wrinkle up in the water, like you do in the bath. Your fingers will look like raisins!”
“Oh no!” James said, his mouth opening into a round, pink O. “Not a fishy then! A…bumblebee!”
“Then you’d have to sting people.” Spectre’s stomach growled, reminding him of his task, and he went back to preparing the pancakes, though he still chuckled at James. “And that’s not very nice.”
“No… Maybe I’ll just be a big boy then. Maybe I’ll save people like Big Daddy!”
Spectre smiled softly to himself as he stirred the pancake batter he was going to use to feed himself and his son, despite the fact that it was five in the morning. It didn’t matter. He could. That was what mattered. “I think you just might, James.” James was already more than a hero in Spectre’s eyes. He was certainly glad for the boy’s presence now and always. “You’re our brave boy.”
“I love you, Daddy,” James said happily from his perch on the table. “And I am very excited about pancakes!”
“I love you too, James. And they’re almost ready for you to eat them all up!” His pancakes wouldn’t evaporate in James’ throat. Not for anything would Spectre do that to his son. The pancakes would fill James' belly and Spectre would continue to see that gorgeous smile.
Seeing his son happy…it was, very possibly, the most amazing sight in the world and Spectre was grateful for it.
Spectre had been forced to fast for days. Ever since he had been brought back here to Glasgow. No...not Spectre. Adrian. Adrian was what his father called him, refusing to accept his chosen moniker. It was always Adrian this, and Adrian that; his birth name passing his father's lips, muttered like a curse word. And what followed wasn't usually much better. And here his father was, in front of him, glowering.
'Adrian, you need to learn respect.'
Adrian always needed to learn something. Learning made Adrian tired and it didn't help that he was already so hungry. He knew Samson made him fast to keep him weak...keep his body vulnerable. It made it easier to convince him that the things he was being forced to see were real. He was nearly to the point where he would call them real anyway for a bite of food.
He had followed his father to Samson's study because he had no other choice. Adrian never had a choice. Samson had knelt him down and tied him up between the posts that stood in the middle of the room. Usually this meant a whipping, but Samson had left Adrian's shirt on. That was not standard whipping procedure. Therein lay small relief.
'If you continue on your path of sin, Adrian, you will feel your life start to fade away.'
His father was pacing back and forth in front of him and Adrian felt so small and weak, kneeling near the much larger man. Samson wasn't usually physically violent. Not unless you counted the whippings. That didn't mean Adrian was any less pleased having no way to escape when the man was on a tirade.
"I don't believe it is sin, Father," Adrian said, sounding like a broken record. He had never had this much gall as a child. As a child he had tried to please Samson, but now he knew...he knew it would never be enough. Samson had come and taken him from his happy life and brought him back here and nothing...nothing would ever be good enough to satisfy the man. Nothing could really end his suffering. He might as well say what he felt.
‘You are in the path to Hell, whether you believe so or not.’
Adrian leaned against the chains, now serving to keep his exhausted and overtaxed body upright as much as they were to restrain him. Here, in this father’s study, he could almost believe that he had never escaped this torment. That 'Spectre' had never existed. He had always been Adrian, and ‘Spectre’ was just a ghost. A phantom. A fantasy, created to protect Adrians’s poor, desperate mind. If that happiness, so hard won, had never existed, then perhaps he wasn’t on the path to Hell. Perhaps he was there already.
‘I will teach you, Son. Open your mind.’
And before Adrian could say a word, his eyes unfocused for a split second, and then he was standing in the middle of a desert, surrounded by nothing but more of it. For miles and miles. Adrian wasn’t sure what he was supposed to learn here, but he didn’t want to stand in one place. He had no shoes and the sand burned the soles of his feet.
Adrian started forward, but the hot sand only grew hotter and soon he was whimpering with every step and trying his hardest to touch as little of the sand as possible with his feet. There was no relief and no place to run to. The pain grew with every step, setting his nerves aflame. Adrian spread his wings and took to the air, his eyes streaming with tears from the pain. The sun beat down on his wings and his feathers quickly grew heavy with sweat. Hot sun, hot air, hot sand, nowhere to go… Adrian’s strength was failing him. His throat burned with thirst and fatigue threatened to claim him. Hunger curled like a snake in his belly, desperate for attention, and angry that none was forthcoming. He couldn’t go on. He would fall to the sand, and burn there. Was there really a lesson to be learned in this? Adrian did the only thing he could think to do.
“Father, please! Help me.”
The desert fell away, replaced by Adrian’s father’s study. Adrian leaned backwards, a loud groan escaping his lips as the coolness of the study granted him relief. He was exhausted and starving and he missed Thomas and his family so much. If they even existed… He was beginning to doubt it. Surely he could not take much more.
‘You have asked for my help, son. You have done well. You see that you need me. Respect should follow.’
Adrian didn’t shout that if Samson hadn’t subjected him to the vision in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed Samson’s help. He didn't shou tthat he had needed Samson to be his father his entire childhood, but Samson was never a father. Only a tyrant. He didn’t argue because it would amount to nothing and he was slipping as it was. He let out a tiny cry of submission and then, in line with that his father had said, he asked, “Father, please. May I have something to eat, and some water?”
It wasn’t begging. Samson did not tolerate begging. Adrian had learned at a young age, that begging was not permitted, and only meant further punishment. He had learned the hard way. Adrian had made sure it sounded like a request, and then he added, “I need you to help me.” At this point, he didn’t care that he was lowering himself to Samson’s level. He didn’t care. He wanted to fill his empty and complaining belly and to quench his rabid thirst more than anything in the world.
‘You may break your fast. I am satisfied you have learned.’
Samson left the room and he didn’t untie Adrian, and for several moments, Adrian thought his father had lied to him. He let out a distressed wail, but then Samson returned, carrying a bowl of soup and a glass of water. First he held the glass to Adrian’s lips and Adrian drank with gusto, despite the fact that he was still restrained and thus, some of the water spilled down his chin and pooled in front of his knees.
‘Perhaps now you will learn some manners.’
Samson was standing in front of Adrian, holding a bowl of steaming soup. Adrian’s mouth started to water and his stomach twisted in hunger. Samson was saying something, but Adrian didn’t hear. His eyes remained fixed on the bowl in front of him, taunting him. So close, but Adrian couldn’t move. Adrian felt ready to burst into tears at the proximity of the food being kept from him when Samson finally offered him a spoonful.
Adrian accepted the spoonful hastily, the taste of it exploding in his mouth. It was delicious and amazing and he very nearly lost control of his tears again. Quickly, he swallowed, eager for more.
‘Greed is a sin, Adrian. As is gluttony.’
Adrian felt the soup evaporate in his throat, gone before it hit his desperate and aching belly. “Father!” Samson fed him another bite, and that one evaporated too. Then another and another. “Father, please!” he cried, begging now because it was torture, pure and simple. His stomach hurt and with each evaporating bite, his hunger grew, the snake now furious, gnashing away inside him, ripping his insides to shreds. His stomach contracted, hardening into a shriveled fist, which pounded painfully inside him. Adrian lost control, weeping even as he continued to take what his father offered in the hope that one bite might make it through. None did. Maybe he would have to feel this way forever. As Adrian. Condemned to suffer-
“NO!” Spectre thrashed in his bed, ripping himself from his horrible dream. He sat up, cold and yet sweaty, his hair clinging to his neck. Tears in his eyes. “Oh, goodness,” he hissed, fighting to catch his breath. Just a dream. It was just a dream and he was not back in Glasgow, suffering the whims of his religious fanatic father. His heart felt like it was trying to escape from his chest as it pounded away inside him, but Spectre took several deep breaths to calm himself. Everything was okay. It was just a dream. Spectre reached up, sniffed, and wiped away his tears.
As wakefulness returned, Spectre felt that he was not alone in his bed. And his cohabitant was not large and room-temperature like his husband was. The shape beside him was small and warm, and he felt like angel. James must have joined him at some point, even though Spectre had tucked the boy into his own bed hours ago. “James?” Spectre asked softly. His husband’s son hadn’t said a word, but Spectre was fairly sure James was not still asleep. Spectre had been thrashing pretty wildly, and James wasn’t that heavy a sleeper.
“Daddy?” James rolled over then, now that he was sure it was okay. He smiled sleepily at Spectre and he reached up to touch Spectre’s sweaty, tear-stained face. “You were crying in your sleep. Are you sad, Daddy?”
Spectre smiled right back, entirely enchanted by the boy, as he always was. His heart swelled with love for James, easily replacing the horror of the nightmare. He breathed out slowly before answering, “no. I’m not sad.”
“Then why did you cry? What were you dreaming?”
James looked up at Spectre, his gorgeous brown eyes, so like Spectre's husband’s, filled with concern for Spectre’s well-being. How did one explain to a little boy that life was hard sometimes. That people made terrible mistakes and sometimes the people that suffered weren’t the ones who deserved it. Spectre had been a child when he had endured the torment Samson had heaped on him, even if Samson had seemed to turn over a new leaf now. Spectre was determined that James would never know that kind of fear. That he would never be afraid of who he was, and he would never be made to suffer for it.
“I was dreaming of sad things,” Spectre admitted, because though James was only three, he was incredibly bright and clued-in for his age and he would know if Spectre lied. He had no intention of doing so. “But it’s not for you to worry about. I’m just fine.”
A quick check of the clock in the corner declared the time to be 5:35 in the morning. James usually rose at 6:30, awakening the household with him. Spectre reached out to pull James into a hug, and he smiled as James jumped to hug him back. There was nothing like his children. Nothing at all in the world. “I love you, James.”
“I love you too, Daddy!”
“I’m feeling a bit hungry. How about we wake up early and I make us some pancakes? Would you like that?” Spectre would like that. Having the freedom to wake up and prepare food whenever he wanted to was one of his greatest reliefs and doing so often was one of the things he did to remind himself he was okay.
James jumped up on the bed, his arms raised in the air. “Yay, PANCAKES!”
Spectre laughed as the boy cheered pancakes with the enthusiasm most people might greet winning the lottery. Then again, when he was a child, he probably would have cheered for pancakes too, for very different reasons. “Up we go then, Angel!” Spectre stood and he held his arms out. James jumped over to the edge of the bed and then he vaulted himself into Spectre’s arms. “Oof! My goodness, you’re getting so big. Do stop that growing immediately,” Spectre joked as he carried the boy out of his room and down to the kitchen.
“No!” James said, feigning indignation.
“No? You don’t want to be a cute, little boy forever?”
“No! I was to be a big boy like you and Daddy!”
Spectre chuckled and he seated James at the table in the kitchen before he moved to retrieve his pancake-making materials. “Your daddy certainly is a big boy,” Spectre laughed. Thomas was still so child-like in all the best ways. Spectre loved him for it. “I think I’m just medium-sized,” Spectre joked. He really was quite tiny, but stunted growth was just one of the many lovely things he had inherited from his time with Samson Mors. By the time he received enough nutrition to grow normally, he was done growing. So he would remain forever small. He was glad to see that Mara wasn’t resigned to quite the same fate. She had shot up six inches in the first year she had lived with them as her starved body reveled and bloomed in a proper diet.
“Bigger than me!” James said happily.
“You’re very right,” Spectre said, mixing up the ingredients as James watched him. “And what do you want to be when you’re a big boy like daddy and me?”
“Uhm…” James rubbed his chin, clearly giving the question Very Serious Thought. “A dinosaur!” he laughed. “No…because they’re all dead now and I don’t want to be dead.”
“Yes…I would prefer that you not grow up to be dead!” Spectre said with a smile. Though Thomas was dead and Spectre loved him so much.
“I want to be one of those guys who digs them up!”
“An archaeologist?” Spectre asked, and he was rewarded with mad nodding instead of the blank looks most 3-year-olds would have given him. “James?” Spectre put down the whisk and he looked his son right in the eye. “You can be whatever you want to be. And your Daddy and your Mummy and I will always be proud of you.”
“I know,” James said, smiling. “Was your dream about grandpa?” Spectre, who had been quite sure James didn’t know much, if anything about that, felt his jaw drop open, and even then he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “Mara was talking about her real daddy and she said he was mean to you. And you said ‘please father’ in your sleep when you cried. Did he tell you you couldn’t be a rock star in your dream?”
James really was extraordinary. To put all that together was no mean feat for a child. The first part, perhaps, but to connect it to what he had said about being whatever James wanted to be… “He said I shouldn’t be a lot of things, James. But he was wrong. He knows that now. And we will never tell you who or what to be.”
“Can I be…a fish?” James said with a mischievous grin.
“I don’t know if fish is a wise career choice, James. You’ll wrinkle up in the water, like you do in the bath. Your fingers will look like raisins!”
“Oh no!” James said, his mouth opening into a round, pink O. “Not a fishy then! A…bumblebee!”
“Then you’d have to sting people.” Spectre’s stomach growled, reminding him of his task, and he went back to preparing the pancakes, though he still chuckled at James. “And that’s not very nice.”
“No… Maybe I’ll just be a big boy then. Maybe I’ll save people like Big Daddy!”
Spectre smiled softly to himself as he stirred the pancake batter he was going to use to feed himself and his son, despite the fact that it was five in the morning. It didn’t matter. He could. That was what mattered. “I think you just might, James.” James was already more than a hero in Spectre’s eyes. He was certainly glad for the boy’s presence now and always. “You’re our brave boy.”
“I love you, Daddy,” James said happily from his perch on the table. “And I am very excited about pancakes!”
“I love you too, James. And they’re almost ready for you to eat them all up!” His pancakes wouldn’t evaporate in James’ throat. Not for anything would Spectre do that to his son. The pancakes would fill James' belly and Spectre would continue to see that gorgeous smile.
Seeing his son happy…it was, very possibly, the most amazing sight in the world and Spectre was grateful for it.
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